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What India and UK couldn’t do in 3 years, Canada has done in 2 months!Our ceiling began to leak early this morning. And where would all the dripping drop? Right on my laptop!! And where exactly on my laptop? On the keyboard and touchpad!!!Andromeda has been acting really weird ever since and I’ve had to restart several times since. On removing the battery, I discovered water had seeped right into the precious organs of my laptop. Current status: The touchpad buttons are completely dead and scrolling doesn’t work anymore.And the liquid that leaked wasn’t just water. This sounds the death knell. I guess I’ll now have to make do with an external mouse until the final moment arrives for my beloved laptop. I’m preparing the obituary already.

I now have phone numbers local to:London, UK Montreal, Canada Washington, USA New York, USAI can actually chain them all together! One of these numbers is via Google Voice. It’s amazing what VoIP can do to you…like living without a phone bill. Yes, it’s possible!

I paid $53 to send some documents via Canada Post from Montreal, Canada to London, UK. The tracking history speaks volumes about how ‘quick’ Xpresspost has been. It took 4 days for my post to even leave Canada! The final delivery is still awaited, though it’s now under Royal Mail.And I cribbed about India Post. I should have known better.

I refuse to be sucked into expensive contracts. Indeed while telecom policies in India, and to a lesser extent UK, make it easier for people like me who loathe the phone, to maintain a not-very-expensive relationship with the damned gadget, I am truly appalled at how difficult it is to subscribe to a minimal rental plan in North America.Getting into a contract is like selling your soul to the Devil. Breaking the contract incurs a huge financial expenditure. Pay-as-you-go is not a viable option either as you generally have to pay monthly $25-$30 anyway. You pay for incoming calls as well and phones here are almost always SIM-locked.The only option left for someone on a shoestring budget is to go for a VoIP service provider who also lets you buy a local number. Localphone, a trusty VoIP provider since my London days, has been my savior in Montreal. I pay $3.80 per month for unlimited incoming calls. Voicemail is free and call forwarding inexpensive. Outgoing calls are also insanely chea…